Mayor of Champagne, IL, “responding” to Covid19….

...bans gun sales?

According to a local report from WAND 17, Champaign Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen has issued an executive order that would give her office “extraordinary powers.” She has issued the order despite the town and surrounding area not having a single case of the disease. 

“The executive order allows the city to be flexible to properly respond to the emergency needs of our community. None of the options will necessarily will be implemented but are available in order to protect the welfare and safety of our community if needed,” Jeff Hamilton the City of Champaign’s Communications Manger told WAND-TV.

Here is the list of other items from the declaration/executive order, which also includes the ability to ban the sale of “food, water, fuel, clothing, and/or other commodities, materials, goods, services and resources,” in addition to alcohol and gasoline. Additionally, government agents or officials have the ability to seize private property and to cut off the city water supply. The mayor justifies everything “in the interest of public safety and wolf.”

The declaration goes a lot further than that. The woman is a Mussolini wannabe.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

If warm weather kill viruses, is global  warming a good thing?

True, it hasn’t been conclusively proven that warm weather kills this particular virus. But can we afford to take the chance? The time to act is now.

I’m cranking up the thermostat.

Joe Doakes

I don’t want to miss any bets, myself.

Diane Napper is running for MN State Senate in SD63 . Check out her website. Help out if you can.

And if I can’t convince you to “socially distance” yourself for the duration of the public health crisis, hopefully this excellent article will. It’s a long, it’s a long, technical read – but the uphot is, the difference between a flu-like .5% death rate, and Italy/Iran/Wuhan-like 3-6%, is keeping the rate of infections down to what the health system can handle. That means lowering the number of infections at any given time, so the heatlh care system can keep up.

It’s literally a matter of life and death.

Wash your hands – often. Wash down surfaces. Don’t sneeze on people – sneeze into a hanky or your elbow or anything but open air. Enjoy some alone time. Stay home from work if you can, and keep your distance if you can’t.

… how many mulligans does a democrat get before people start actually calling them on there, well, “inconsistencies”?

The answer, of course, provided they are progressive enough, is “as many as they want”

“Authenticity”.

This is not the Babylon Bee. 

The article itself is a moderately interesting read, if only to (try to help sort of maybe kinda) understand the minds of those whose entire frame of reference begins and ends with progressivism filtered through the lens of identity feminism.

It’s easy to laugh at the medias predilection for hysteria mongering.. I mean, I get it – it sells papers and gets people to tune in, to newspapers who sales are in death spirals and television stations and networks who’s ratings are in free fall.

And laugh, we certainly are.

But there is a very, very dark side to the squandering of trust that happens every time the media over blows a snowstorm, or a dossier, or an attorney generals report. 

Famine is one of the key markers, and sources for the legends, in human history. It’s been the sabertooth tiger outside the campfire light for most of humanities history.

But never in that history has there been a famine in a society that had two things:

1. A relatively free market
2. A relatively free media – Defined as a media that is free to ask questions and report on the answers it gets without government interference.

Those two advances have combined – and I do mean combined, because you don’t get the benefits of the one without the other – To illuminate famine, at least on a widespread, society destroying basis, so every time they have ever been combined. No society with a free market and a Free Press, even relatively speaking, has ever had a famine. Those two factors also combined it to bring other, perhaps even in calculable, blessings to humanity – but let’s stick with famine for right now, since it’s appropriate to today’s situation.

So what happens when you have a Media that is Free – but nobody trusts it?

Who do you trust, these days?

Its’ not an idle question.   One is completely justified in thinking the media is whipping up a certain amount of hysteria to sell papers and to smear the President – which isn’t to say Trump’s been covering himself with glory in this particular crisis, but the “elite” media made it very well known they were in the bag against Trump to the point changing the rules of the trade to “denormalize” the President; in that context, a pandemic is just another crisis not to waste.

Self-government depends on institutions we can trust – not just the  media, but the courts, law enforcement, the bureaucracy, everything.

And we just can’t anymore.  Not when the issue is more political than a car crash or soybean futures.

I’ve seen a few Democrats on me on social media saying they thought Joe Biden’s performance with the auto workers the other day it was a good episode, and a sign of strength.

I was truly, truly not convinced.

I think I have really, really good reason not to be:

If Biden now has a reputation as a champion of gun confiscation — and if construction workers in Michigan are asking him about it, it suggests he does — he is going to have a hard time winning back the voters that Trump peeled away from the Obama coalition. Barack Obama didn’t say much about guns at all until his second term had begun, and, once he did, he presided over the loss of the Senate, the loss of the White House, and a record-breaking period of civilian firearms sales. Judging by their rhetoric, Democrats seem to believe that the center of gravity has changed on this question since then. But the evidence for this is scant. The State of Virginia is run solely by Democrats — Democrats who were bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg and who promised to pass restrictive gun control as their first priority. They failed, and sparked a massive backlash in the process. Do we think the playing field looks different in Michigan?

In a way, Biden‘s outburst serves as a Rorschach blob; Democrats see a Trump like outburst a candidly unguarded rhetoric; conservative to see a working stiff cornering a candidate with wildly contradictory messages on the issue, and the candidate flailing.

I’m going to stick with “flailing“.

America’s left, sotted as it is with Urban Progressive Privilege, has little doubt that it is the the smart crowd.

Of course, you don’t have to be a conservative in Saint Paul, or on social media, to know that that’s just not so. This has been bouncing around for a while, but it’s worth a read.

Pullquote:

In the 2018 GSS, respondents were asked for whom they voted in 2016 (PRES16) or for whom they would have voted if they had voted (IF16WHO): Clinton, Trump, someone else, or no one.

On the verbal ability test (WORDSUM), not surprisingly the median number of vocabulary questions correct was the same for both Clinton and Trump supporters: 6 out of 10 words correct.  The mean verbal ability score for Trump supporters was 6.15 words correct, while the mean verbal ability score for Clinton supporters was 5.69 correct, a difference of nearly a half a question on a 10-question test.  This moderate difference is statistically significant at p<.0005.

Further, Trump supporters score significantly higher on verbal ability (6.15 correct) than the rest of the public combined (5.70 correct), whereas Clinton supporters score significantly lower on verbal ability (5.69 correct) than the rest of the public combined (5.98 correct).

I know, I know – another self-service social science survey that makes one side feel good and jabs at the other. Notify the media.

Wait. I am the media.

Big Left’s smug superior self-image is…irrationally exuberant.

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Teachers say they’re striking because the schools are unsafe, not just for money.  But the solutions they propose don’t address the root causes of the problem.

Society painted itself into this corner a little at a time, each new initiative sounding good but each one sacrificing a little, too.  In every aspect of life, when there isn’t enough to go around, society must practice triage, must decide who gets the scarce commodity and who is robbed of it.  I suggest we’ve been making the wrong decision.

Child 1 has autism.  He needs special education, extra attention from teacher, additional time on tests but we’ve mainstreamed him in the classroom with average and smart kids.  While teacher is working with him, the other 29 students are bored, learning nothing.

Child 2 doesn’t want to be in school but is lumped with students who do.  He acts out, picks fights, talks back, disrupts class but we can’t remove him because of his race.  While the teacher is dealing with him, the other 29 kids are bored, learning nothing.

Child 3 has mental health problems.  You get the idea.

Two kids might have better lives, the disruptive one probably will drop out soon.  27 kids fail the reading and math test for their grade level.  Which is understandable, since they’ve been sitting in class learning nothing all year.

The solution may not be hiring mental health counselors in the main office or racism monitors in every building.  The solution may be removing the three who need special attention so the 27 can thrive.  No amount of teacher salary raises will solve that problem.

Joe Doakes


All very true – if the goal is to actually educate children.

And for many, probably most, teachers that is the goal. But for the administrative class, and a public employee unions that really control the whole situation, it’s really about power and transfer of wealth. If any children actually get educated, chalk it up to collateral benefits achieved by pure happenstance.

Joe Biden tells 2nd Amendment supporter he’s, er, “full of shit”.

“You are actively trying to end our Second Amendment right and take away our guns,” the worker said to Biden, according to video captured by CBS reporter Bo Erickson.

Biden immediately interjected, saying “You’re full of shit,” and implored those gathered to listen to his clarification.

Then, he shows that he is, indeed, full of…

…well, you know. Specifically FOS bits are emphasized by me:

“I support the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment — just like right now, if you yelled ‘fire,’ that’s not free speech,” Biden continued. “And from the very beginning — I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. My sons hunt. Guess what? You’re not allowed to own any weapon. I’m not taking your gun away at all.” [Which is it? Ed.]

The man cited “viral” videos surrounding his claim that Biden is against the Second Amendment, saying the former vice president was “trying to take our guns.”

“I did not say that. I did not say that,” Biden repeated. “It’s a viral video like the other ones they’re putting out that are simply a lie.”

“This is not OK, alright?” the man shot back.

Biden replied, “Don’t tell me that, pal, or I’m going to go outside with your ass.”

“You’re working for me, man!” the worker said.

“I’m not working for you,” Biden said. “Don’t be such a horse’s ass.”

But then, Biden has also told us he’s going to put Beto “Hell Yeah, I’m Coming For Your Guns” O’Rourke in charge of gun policy, so it’d seem he’s full of…

…well, you know where this leads, right?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Colleges are telling students not to return from Spring Break. Schools are closing.  Employers are letting people work from home.  Everybody is taking the virus seriously.

Except local government.  The courts are open.  They’re going to stay open, all of them, until the State Court Administrator tells them to shut down.

Look, for people who get arrested and need an arraignment to get out on bail, fine, I get it.  You need a judge on duty.  Same for Orders for Protection, emergency guardianship, etc.  But the hearing doesn’t have to take place in person in the courthouse, it could be Skype.

For nearly everybody else – conciliation court, family court, probate, real estate, contract disputes – the hearing is postponed indefinitely.

Why not get out ahead of it now?  Why wait?

I blame Trump.  I suspect Democrats are afraid that if they close down the court system, Trump will pounce on it as an excuse to impose martial law and there will never be another election again.  No, seriously, I really do think they’re that paranoid. After all, that’s what they would do, if the shoe were on the other foot.

Joe Doakes

Berg’s 7th Law.

Nobody’s laughing now.

A friend of the blog writes:

It’s abortion providers day in St Paul. As a woman in St Paul, I am offended with that being a recognized day by the City council and mayor.
I do think women’s health deserves some public recognition, though. And if the city people cared about women’s health, they would focus on things other than abortion.
But, they focus on abortion. Which tells me this is more political than anything. I’m not quite sure where this is going politically, though, in a liberal city that seems to agree blindly with the people they elect. 
As a conservative health care provider who understands that a ban on abortions doesn’t actually save lives (people are going to get back alley abortions if they are illegal), I do support “legal but rare”- counseling, waiting periods, adoption options that actually reduce abortions, etc. Democrats like to say they support these things, too, but then they go and specifically celebrate abortion. I can’t believe they can actually walk proudly into their public offices while supporting things like abortion providers day. There are new lows every day.

The fact that Saint Paul decided to “celebrate” abortion providers shows us it’s not just political, but it’s operating on the same basic level as one of the President’s late-night tweets. It’s there to poke a thumb in the eye of anyone who gives a fetus any moral weight, to show them who’s really boss in Saint Paul.

As this is written, I’m not sure if teachers in the Saint Paul Public schools are going to be going out on strike today. It seemed very likely.

One things for certain: the teachers unions PR people have been earning their money. Minnesota Public Radio’s coverage of the strike in particular sounds as if it is written directly from teachers union talking points.

Seriously. You be the judge:

St. Paul educators lead the nation in a strategy of using their contract negotiations as a lever to not just get better pay for themselves, but to make their schools a better place for their communities, said Lesley Lavery, an associate professor at Macalester College who studies education.

“Teachers are continuing their strategy of bargaining for the common good which they started about a decade rago,” Lavery said. “They’re trying to listen to community members and listen to teachers’ concerns on the theory that teachers are working most closely with students.”

Raise? Hell, you’re almost wanna give them a medal, don’t you?

Seriously – the entire time of MPR is coverage smacks of one pseudo-governmental fiefdom scratching another pseudo-governmental fiefdoms back.

The center of the American experiment has some facts about the SPPS:

On the surface, these salary increases may seem reasonable, but a deeper dive into the numbers provides more clarity around the union’s demands. Pay increases are built into the salary schedule for the first 20-or-so years of a teacher’s career. The 3.4 percent and 2 percent increases would be on top of the salary increase formula already included in the existing union contract, commonly called the “step and lane” progression. Despite participating in countless media interviews leading up to the strike, the teachers’ union has neglected to mention these built-in increases that already exist.

Unexpectedly.

So then you will ignore the Canadians:

For months, young people on university campuses across Canada have gathered to call and text American voters in the hopes of convincing them to support Sanders as the 2020 Democratic nominee.

“I see this as really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not just in American politics, but for left-wing politics around the world,” said Vancouver student Quentin Rowe-Codner.

The 22-year-old Sanders supporter did some research and discovered foreigners are allowed to volunteer for any campaign.

“I decided to start making calls and texts and I found that to be good and rewarding,” said Rowe-Codner. “But I started a little bit isolated just doing it on my own.” 

If the left didn’t have selective indignation, they’d have no…

…well, no. They’d just have undiscriminating blanket indignation.

Elizabeth Warren campaign staffers abuse journalist who “didn’t support Warren” enough.

Politico reporter Alex Thompson, who was assigned by his editor to cover Warren’s campaign, posted screenshots of messages that Warren staffers have been sending him.

Some Warren campaign staffers don’t have a good understanding of campaign journalism.
Not my job to “actively support the candidate that you were assigned”
It is my job to contact as many ppl as possible rather than just rely on what the campaign wants to give me. pic.twitter.com/GjSDQ4i5ii

— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) March 7, 2020

The part that surprised me ? Emphasis added below:

One of the staffers chided him for not “actively supporting” Warren’s campaign while others told him to “eat s**t.”

Thompson explained, “Some Warren campaign staffers don’t have a good understanding of campaign journalism. Not my job to ‘actively support the candidate that you were assigned‘ It is my job to contact as many ppl as possible rather than just rely on what the campaign wants to give me.”

What? A reporter acting lilke…a reporter?

The cynics among you might point out “that’s just when reporting among Democrats; the reporter is probably a Biden or Bernie supporter”. And you have a point; if you’re not a cynic about the coverage of politics in this country, you’re not paying attention.

Still, it’s nice to see the Warren Kidz’ invincible entitlement getting even gently slapped down. Looking at their Twitter feeds, it would appear to have been the first time it’s ever happened; we’re talking about kids who’ve never known anything but Urban Progressive Privilege.

Bernie Bro youtuber Carlos Maza isn’t especially oblique about his politics:

He’s one of those “eat the rich” “socialists”. I’m not going to link to his material – I watched a bit, so you wouldn’t have to.

Anyway he’s a little more reticent about disclosing his own background.

Fortunately, the NYPost isn’t:

Through his clan, the millennial firebrand is connected to multiple Florida mega-mansions, a $7.1 million pad on the Upper West Side purchased under an LLC — and a yacht by luxury boat-maker Donzi.

Maza’s mother Vivian Maza was one of the first employees at Ultimate Software, a Florida-based behemoth which now employs more than 5,000 people. Starting in 1990 as an office manager, she ultimately rose to become the group’s chief people officer in 2004.

In addition to her day job, Vivian Maza also developed a very close personal relationship with company founder Scott Scherr — so close that an independent assessment of the company in 2016 cited the relationship as a “corporate governance concern.”

The report said they believed the pair to be “more than just co-workers” and have a “familial relationship.” The two later became engaged, and the couple has lived together for years, with Scherr being a de facto stepfather to Carlos.

Public records show Vivian, Scott, Carlos and sister Isabel all registered to vote at a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom waterfront palace in Boca Raton, Florida. The property sold in 2018 for $10.8 million according to realty website Zillow. Scherr also unloaded a four-bed, four-bath home in 2015 mansion in Weston, Florida, for $1,850,000 in 2015.

Back when I had my original show on KSTP-AM back in the eighties, I did a little digging into the background of the leaders of the Minneapolis “Backroom Anarchist Center”, a local precursor to “Anti”-Fa. And every single leader whose background I could find hailed from Edina, Wayzata or (for the real blue-collar heroes) Woodbury; they had degrees from Macalester, Saint Thomas or (for the ones that were slumming it) the U of M, to a person.

And it’s no wonder. It takes a lot of money to maintain the “socialist” lifestyle and mindset.

Just another day at the airport for Cenk Uygur, Armenian Holocaust denialist and host of The Young Turks, the screaming, tantrum-throwing inner id of modern progressivism:

Here is a two-minute video @cenkuygur screaming at black airline employees because a flight was delayed pic.twitter.com/dGGFJzTsDt

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) March 8, 2020

Wonder if the poor airline employee IDed as a Young Turks fan will be filing a cease and desist?

You can call it schadenfreud if you want – I’ve met Uygur, and he’s not a lot less annoying in real life.

Or you could call it karma for this glorious evening of self-parody that even the Babylon Bee couldn’t have envisioned:

I say “why choose”?

There is only one reason to not vote for Mark Robinson for Lieutenant Governor this fall.

And that reason is racism.

Carry on.

In the race for the Democratic nomination to run against President Trump in 2020:

• Every black candidate has left the race.
• Every Latino candidate has dropped out.
• Every Native American candidate…hah hah hah, you know where this goes.
• Every woman with a serious shot (thanks for playing, Tulsi) is out.

Bummer Republicans are such bigots.

Michael Bloomberg is out of the Presidential race. There’s $700 million that won’t go toward anti-gun groups, anyway. Of course, he’s always got more.

He also left the good guys this estimable gift – a quote that sums up every “progressive’s” view of what guns are about – in this case, on why he, a man who would disarm Americans the same way he’d deprive them of 32 ounce pop, deserves a bunch of armed security guards:

“Look, I probably get 40 or 50 threats every week, OK, and some of them are real. That just happens when you’re the mayor of New York City or you’re very wealthy and if you’re campaigning for president of the United States,” Bloomberg replied. “You get lots of threats. So, I have a security detail, I pay for it all myself, and . . . they’re all retired police officers who are very well trained in firearms.”

“A well-paid security detail being necessary to secure the well-being of the ruling class against unruly proles, the right to keep and bear arms shall be carefully managed”.

(And if those “retired police” are Bloomie’s former employees, I’m not feeling nearly as safe as he thinks I should be, either in their coolness and discernment or restraint).

…to be fair, this isn’t much different than AOC’s point of view on many topics. 

…When the Democrats we’re concerned about the chilling effect President Trump’s criticism of a foreign service bureaucrat would have? Not withstanding that the ambassador served at his pleasure?

Either do they.

Speaking to a crowd on the Supreme Court steps, the leading Senate Democrat declared: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” He meant Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the newest Justices who were appointed by President Trump.

Mr. Schumer was speaking before abortion-rights activists as the Supreme Court considers whether to curtail the ability of abortion providers to sue on behalf of women seeking abortions—a doctrine known as third-party standing. Mr. Schumer, still addressing Messrs. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, added: “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Between all the Democrats talk of eliminating or neutralizing the electoral college, making the Senate a popular body or illuminating it, and packing the supreme court and they’re not attacking it, it’s almost as if the Democrats have not the faintest interest in checks, balances and federalism.

Chief Justice Roberts was not amused:



This is going to be an interesting summer.



If “common sense” were truly common, we wouldn’t really need a word for it, would we?

If you give people money to do something, they will take it. If you give them more money to do the same thing, they will take more money. Put another way, the more money you provide for a good or service, the more the apparent cost of that good or service will be.

It seems so simple, doesn’t it?

Not simple enough for higher education policymakers, naturally.

Federally guaranteed student loans, as a cause-and-effect relationship, have made a college education unaffordable:

Secured financing of student loans resulted in a surge of students applying for college. This increase in demand was, in turn, met with an increase in price because university administrators would charge more if people were willing to pay it, just as any other business would (though to be fair, student loans do require more administration staff for processing).  According to Forbes, the average price of tuition has increased eight times faster than wages since the 1980s. In 2018, the Federal Reserve estimated that there is currently $1.5 trillion in unpaid student debt. The Institute for College Access and Success estimates that in 2017, 65 percent of recent bachelor’s degree graduates have student loans, and the average is $28,650 per borrower.

The government’s backing of student loans has caused the price of higher education to artificially rise; the demand would not be so high if college were not a financially viable option for some. Young people have been led to believe that a diploma is the ticket to the American dream, but that’s not the case for many Americans.

Financially, it makes no sense to take out a $165,000 loan for a master’s degree that leads to a job where the average annual salary is $38,000—yet thousands of young people are making this choice. Only when they graduate do they understand the reality of their situation as they live paycheck-to-paycheck and find it next-to-impossible to save for a home, retirement, or even a rainy-day fund.

And yet there are far too many people profiting from the current arrangement for any real hope of change.

If you’ve got half an hour, watch this – a fascinating Australian broadcast with a Chinese government official (it’s in English – well, Australian – so don’t get put off by all the Chinese script on the Youtube vid), a couple dissidents, and a few journalists.

And when I say journalists, I don’t mean the weak-tea narrative fluffers that infest most “elite” American newsrooms. The Ozzies actually make the Chinese government rep break a sweat.

As Chinese people get more access to the outside world, and become more aware of how their government really works, and they suffer the effects that the coverup and crony economy (in information as well as goods and services) has on them, the people of Hong Kong are reminding me more and more of the people of Poland 40 years ago – the canary in the socialist coal mine.

It’s going to be an interesting couple years in Asia.

City council in the Finnish city of Oulu devises a radical new approach to the rape epidemic that is no-how, no way associated with migrants pouring into the area with no incentive or intent to assimilate:

Sorry if you can’t un-think this.   But it’s important; if someone in Scandinavia is doing this, it’ll be in Minnesota eventually. 

As Titania McGrath notes, if German women had known this in 1945, the Soviet mass rape camnpaign would have stopped in its tracks.